31 Days of Halloween: The Blob

Horror movies have always been a favorite genre of mine. Even when I was a child, Disney movies took a back seat to things like Nightmare on Elm Street, Evil Dead 2 and Friday the 13th. It wasn’t because of the blood and gore, but because the main characters were genuinely interesting. Sure, there were some things I didn’t understand until I grew up a bit, but these movies were so cool and radically different that they stuck with me. As I got older, I started to dig back through the generations to unearth some real gems. I became enthralled with the 50s because of how many memorable movies were released at that time. In today’s movie climate, you’re lucky to get a really solid horror movie every year but back then, you had all manner of creatures being pumped out from some companies that don’t even exist anymore. You had giant lizards taking down Toyko, body snatchers, creatures who lived in black lagoons, and more. That’s when I found out two things. The first was that I was more in love with the creatures in these movies than the movies themselves and the second was that one of my favorites from this time was The Blob.

No not the 80s remake, the original with the campy as all hell theme song and what I think is one of Steve McQueen’s more memorable roles. Forget The Great Escape, no one cares about “Bullit”, it’s all about the tale of a town vs. a gelatinous, killer blob from outer space with Steve McQueen leading the charge. The thing about The Blob that sets itself apart from other movies of that time is that the blob alien in the movie shows no emotion, no facial expressions to gauge anything by, nothing. This monster is just an emotionless hungry killer. You can’t reason with it. You can’t plead with it. If it catches you, you’re dead. The end. Speaking of dead, the way it kills you is probably the worst freaking way to go, ever. The blob monster covers you from head to toe and digests you, slowly, until there’s nothing left. At least if Godzilla were going to blast you with some atomic breath, I’m sure death would be instantaneous. Being eaten alive little by little though, is almost insane to even fathom. As a final note to why The Blob is scary; the monster is never killed, merely defeated. You’ll have to watch it to find out how, but wouldn’t you be scared living in a world where there is some evil force out there that can come back one day, never being truly dead?

Now sure, you can watch the remake from the 80’s which is far more graphic but you should really appreciate the original first, as with any title you watch. It’s fascinating to see techniques used back then that you will never see anymore because of the modern use of computers in film making. For fans of old school horror or creepy creatures, this movie is definitely for you. In a time where monster movies were a dime a dozen, this one stood above the rest. I guarantee, after watching this, you won’t look at strawberry jam the same way again.